996 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION H. 
Metropolitan Fire Brigade. At the first meeting of this Associa- 
tion in this building, just ten years since, I had the pleasure of 
reading a paper on “The Fireproofing of City Buildings,” and it 
therefore occurred to me that a few further notes on the same 
subject, especially in the view of the lessons taught by the 
Melbourne fire, might be of interest at the present time. The 
block which has been almost entirely destroyed measures approx- 
imately 660 feet from EH. to W., and 313 from N. to S., and is 
bounded by Elizabeth-street on the west, by Flinders-street on 
the south, by Swanston-street on the east (all three 99 feet in 
width), and by Flinders-lane, 33 feet in width on the north. 
It was occupied mostly by warehouses, some of them seven and 
eight storeys in height, and intersected by a few narrow lanes and 
rights-of-way, making altogether what the Insurance Offices would 
call a hazardous risk. 
With the exception of the Mutual Store, all the buildings were 
of the ordinary construction—z.e., brick walls, timber floors, in 
many cases ceiled with match-boarding, wooden roofs covered 
with corrugated iron, and hence very inflammable. Some had iron 
shutters to their windows, fire-mains, and other precautions, but 
these proved useless in consequence of the faulty construction of 
the buildings from a fire-resisting point of view. 
The progress of the fire may be best gathered from the report 
of Mr. Stein, and summarised is as follows :—It commenced in 
the seven-storey warehouse of Messrs. Craig, Williamson, and 
Thomas, facing Elizabeth-street, which, when the firemen arrived, 
was fully alight, flames coming out of the windows up to the 
fourth floor, and hence impossible to save. A heavy westerly 
wind was blowing, and the firemen’s attention was mainly directed 
to saving the adjoining buildings but without avail. In ten 
minutes time the upper part of Fink’s eight-storey building was 
alight. The doors were burst open and a rush made by the firemen 
to use the fire-hose with which the building was fitted, but the 
roof fell in and drove the firemen out. At thismoment news came 
that the wooden structures on the flat asphalte roof of the Mutual 
Store were ablaze, but thanks to the character of the roof this 
was got under; meanwhile the fire, under pressure of the heavy 
wind, had got through to Flinders-lane. A few seconds after this, 
Mr. Stein noticed that Crawford, King, & Co.’s, warehouse was 
burning, and very shortly after that Sargood, Butler, Ewen, and 
Nichol’s large softgoods warehouse adjoining had caught on the roof. 
In a quarter of an hour it was gutted. During this time the fire 
had attacked the Mutual Store at various points, but the firemen 
were able to keep it under. Going round to Flinders-lane, Mr. 
Stein found that the fire had got through in Sargood’s rear 
warehouse, but that the warehouses on each side were as yet 
untouched. The flames had also penetrated to the lane through 
